


'til the needing had ceased

by akitania (spacehairdresser)



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Ficlet Collection, M/M, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9661964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehairdresser/pseuds/akitania
Summary: Tumblr Request Crossposting Part 2: Just Exorcists This Time





	1. (sax solo)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: [This ASW strip. ](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=635)

The Natori house is close enough to the train tracks that Shuuichi is sometimes woken in the middle of the night by the rumbling and the engines. He knows the schedules well, and he knows it is only two more months until he finishes school and can leave. He knows how he will do it. Every time he is woken by the sound of that mechanical grind, he pictures himself for a moment riding along those tracks, watching the scenery blur by.

“You can’t go too far,” Seiji said, when he’d mentioned it once in passing. He sounded smug in his usual odd way. “You don’t know anyone anywhere else.”

“I’m fine with that.”

Seiji still had another year of school left, Shuuichi remembered. It was why, most likely, he was lurking outside a gathering at a house that belonged to his own family. To go inside was to be treated as a child.

Even when he graduated, Seiji wouldn’t leave, would he. The thought wasn’t a question when it passed his mind. Where else would he go?

“Well, it’s good you’re going into another line of work.” That smile again. Shuuichi was less tempted to try to wipe it away with a punch than he would have been once, but he still scowled.

“I’m not quitting, you know,” he said.

As if _he_ were the actor, Seiji arched an eyebrow. It was a studied expression; strange how Seiji was becoming more careful, more mannered. There was something about it that worried Shuuichi. 

(The Matoba head grew sicker every day, the rumors said.)

“Well, if you go far enough, at least you won’t have to compete with me.”

He isn’t going that far. He knows the train schedules, but he also knows his limits. It’s too soon to leave entirely what little reputation he has built. 

For the first time, when he hears the rumble on the tracks, when in his mind he watches his home rush away behind him, he does not picture himself alone.

_Do you ever want to leave_ , he hadn’t asked. There wouldn’t have been a point.


	2. yr. obedient servant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: [This ASW strip.](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=292)

His mother was the one who taught him the value of writing a proper letter. She set him to work scratching out crude practice invitations and inquiries as soon as he could string together hiragana.

There are principles to a good letter: it must be concise, it must be personal, and it must be clear. The letter he sent to the Natsume boy was not a particularly good one — it rambled, it betrayed uncertainty. But then, he never really expected it to be read.

Typically, if he isn’t satisfied with what he’s written, he won’t send it at all. One letter lies discarded in the back of a desk drawer, where it has lain for years. It begins, _Dear Shuuichi-san_ , and ends, _I wish you would_ , because he never thought of a proper resolution.

Tonight, it is too late, the shadows in his room a bit too sharp and dark, so he has made several errors already, let ink smear and characters tilt off-center. He doesn’t mind, because this letter isn’t going to be read, either. It begins, _Dear Natori-san_ , and ends, _I know how you_ , because he is giving up on writing any more.

His mother always chid him for leaving things unfinished, though, so he adds the word _interfered_ so at least the sentence is complete.

_I wish you would_ — he remembers the letter, but not how he had meant to conclude it. It had to have been something too selfish for him to entertain now. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/156470557201/horrible-exorcists-35)


	3. canon divergence au time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: [This ASW strip.](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=1223)

At the very least, they look good.

Natori had thought once that he might become an actor. He knows how to catch people’s attention. (He does it with intent, now, after years of not having much choice in the matter.) 

A grand old hall in a grand old villa isn’t so much different from a stage, and he can reduce it to set pieces in his mind. Cast the gathered crowd as the chorus and Matoba, whose ability to draw the eye — like every other ability — is just a bit superior, and himself, slightly behind, as his support. 

They look very good, balanced in color, almost matched in height, Natori’s sharp worldliness met by Matoba’s vague _other_ worldliness. An obvious partnership. He knows what the others see when the look at them. He becomes less a grasping upstart, Matoba less an icy, unreal prodigy. The shining hopes of their generation. That’s casting, too.

They are tremendously helpful to each other, in their ways.

“Talk to Fukuyama-san,” Matoba murmurs as they enter. He can speak almost without moving his lips. “He won’t say useful anything to me.”

“Who will?” Natori tosses back. _He_ can’t speak and keep a steady face, but he can grin through any words.

Matoba’s smile, in response, is very thin. He looks back at Natori the way he looks at his bow before he draws it. “You, maybe.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/156519608216/if-no-one-has-beaten-me-to-it-horrible-exorcists)


	4. skinship????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "An absent look or touch"

“Get down,” Shuuichi hissed, and before Seiji could protest _no, this is my chance_ , the older boy had half-dragged him to the ground to hide with him behind a leafless bush.

_This doesn’t even provide any cover_ , Seiji wanted to complain. He wanted to complain, too, about the frost soaking through his clothes and the smell of rotting leaves, but Shuuichi was so absorbed in tracking the motions of the youkai between the trees that Seiji had a feeling he would be even less attentive than usual. Behind those useless glasses, his eyes were flicking back and forth, following the shadowy form.

So distracted was he that he hadn’t moved his hand from Seiji’s wrist, a fact he inexplicably found more irritating than his wet knees or the wasted opportunity when the youkai was _right there in front of them_. 

“You’re not going to catch anything by sitting on the ground,” Seiji whispered. Whispered _instructionally_. “That’s today’s lesson. Don’t just _sit_ there.” The youkai — a beast, wolflike in shape — was drawing closer, and Seiji could trace the arc of a perfect, clear shot to reach it. Just as he started to pull back, ready to draw an arrow, Shuuichi’s fingers tightened around his wrist as if by reflex. “Let go.”

“What?” Shuuichi muttered, glancing back at Seiji for the first time. “Oh.” He released him so casually he might not have noticed he’d been touching him at all.

The way the cold of the frozen ground seemed to have seeped through his clothes, the heat of Shuuichi’s hand seemed to have done the same. As Seiji  readied his bow, he tried to ignore the way the skin on his wrist prickled as though it had been burned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/157033081566/happy-snow-day-if-you-want-to-do-the-minific)


	5. fetch the smelling salts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "On the edge of consciousness."

Above him, Seiji was saying something, but the words didn’t reach — Shuuichi thought of television static, or a poorly tuned radio, or words half-erased on a chalkboard, his mind drifting. His body, which had felt so heavy a moment ago, had become suddenly light, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was still lying on the ground where he collapsed.

“—home.” He heard the word, and his own name, and sudden, rough contact. Seiji was pulling at him, but Shuuichi’s feet couldn’t find solid ground, he wasn’t sure what way he needed to move. Another word. “ _Please_.”

For some reason, the one thought capable of sticking in his mind instead of running through like water was that this was the only time he could remember Seiji being even vaguely polite. To him, at least. He meant to laugh, but it came out as a shudder and a gasp, which earned another, “Shuuichi-san!”

Was he _concerned_? Seiji forced his eyes open again, but the swimming fractal of leaves above him just nauseated him. He let them fall shut, and this time, the rest of the world faded away as well.

Shuuichi didn’t regain consciousness until he was back in his house, staring at Seiji’s back silhouetted against the dusky light, so he wasn’t sure why he thought he remembered the sunset burning behind his eyelids or Seiji’s bony shoulder digging into his chest.

He wasn’t sure, either, why the light and the nearly obscured shape of Seiji’s body brought him back to an older memory, a half-awake fragment that had felt more like a dream, if he ever had dreams so mundane. Just himself, waking on a windowsill, and Seiji beside him, leaving as he woke. But why would he be—

Well, why would he have dreamed it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/157043940756/from-the-prompt-list-horrible-exorcists-and-k-i)


	6. look at this photograph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Photograph"

“Does it show up in pictures?” **  
**

Shuuichi would have cursed if there he weren’t surrounded by exorcists who already seemed to have decided he was some kind of hooligan. Instead, he turned around with great patience and gave Seiji (of course — even if he hadn’t recognized the voice, who else conjured himself from thin air to bother him at gatherings?) a very baleful look. “What.”

In one hand, Seiji was holding a cup of tea; in the other, he gestured vaguely at Shuuichi’s forearm — the salamander ayakashi, he realized, looking down. It had circled his wrist and was wriggling under his sleeve, only the tip of the tail still visible. “I was wondering about your pet.”

“Why?” asked Shuuichi, not in the mood for questions longer than one word.

Seiji looked irritated himself, a scowl passing over his face for just a moment before transmuting to his usual smile. “Curiosity. But does it? Have you ever seen it in a photograph?”

It took him a moment to consider it. He could hardly remember being photographed, much less looking at pictures of himself. His family wasn’t exactly the scrapbooking type. He had never bothered to buy his school’s yearbook, either, but had always just waited for the ayakashi to move from his face before smiling for the camera. (He wasn’t sure why, though — none of his classmates would be able to see it in the first place.) “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

Shuuichi recognized boredom in Seiji’s bland expression as he took a sip of tea, and in boredom recognized… something. It always seemed to take Seiji a lot of effort to appear expressionless. “Do you want to find out?” he asked. “One of my cousins gave me a camera for my last birthday.”

He squinted. Again: “ _Why_?”

And again: “Curiosity!” His voice had turned strangely defensive, and he took a very long drink of his tea before saying again, “I _said_ , curiosity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/157112707376/can-i-suggest-the-prompt-photograph-for)


	7. i got sunshine...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: [This ASW strip.](http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=27)

Shuuichi is an indifferent student, not a bad one. He wouldn’t skip school without cause, and being accosted on his morning route by Matoba Seiji, bow slung across his back and smile bright, is not much of a cause. A youkai in the valley behind the train tracks is not much of a cause. Being bullied into accompanying Seiji on a hunt is not much of a cause, but for some reason, it works.

“I still can’t believe it’s practically in your backyard and you didn’t notice,” Seiji says, plucking the string of his bow as the approach the second hour of lying in wait.

“Shut up,” Shuuichi mutters, but his heart isn’t in it; he hasn’t been sleeping well, and the mid-morning heat is soporific, all the dew now faded from the grass. He unrolls from his hunched sitting position to lying flat on his back, not minding the way the grass tickles his neck or soon will be staining his shirt now that his blazer’s been discarded.

Seiji looks at him, and actually sounds disappointed when he says, “You’re not taking this seriously.”

Barely listening, Shuuichi searches the sky. There’s an airplane, a few birds. “You’re just here to cut class.”

Suddenly, Seiji flops down as well, his neck twisted so he can continue scrutinizing Shuuichi. He feels embarrassed, for some reason, and it certainly isn’t Seiji’s critical expression. “I’d cut class in my own home, if I wanted to. This is out of my way — I’m here to _work_.”

Shuuichi doesn’t so much laugh as take a few staccato breaths, refusing to smile. “Obviously.”

He doesn’t want to actually fall asleep, even now that Seiji’s become quiet, so he keeps his eyes trained on the clouds. One shaped like a tiger, one like a baseball cap — he feels like a child.

After the silence has stretched just a bit too far, Shuuichi becomes uncomfortably aware that Seiji hasn’t moved, is still craning his neck to look at him. He cranes his, too, to meet Seiji’s eyes for just a moment. They are strangely distant, almost dreamy, and something rolls over in Shuuichi’s stomach.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, unsure why his voice sounds so sharp.

Seiji opens his mouth, but he doesn’t have an answer.


	8. balcony scene redux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Things you said that I wasn't meant to hear."

It’s the sense of déjà vu that makes him stop. Shuuichi hears his name, or at least his family’s, but doesn’t pause until he feels the faintly electric familiarity roll down his spine, and then he turns. He would know where to look even without knowing how the voices carry down from the second-story window — he remembers Seiji curled in the frame, wide eyes on him like a bored housecat. He remembers how he’d scowled back at him, thinking of the stubborn red of the kimono pierced by the tree.  _He’s so-so._

Matoba is not looking down tonight, but Shuuichi can recognize him in the window, hair gathered in a thin tail at his nape. His shoulders, draped in his formal black, are broad enough now to block more of the warm light, and to make it harder for Shuuichi to see past him. The voice Shuuichi had heard mention  _Natori_  was not his, too high, nor was the warmer one that responds, “I heard he barely made it out alive.”

That’s a stretch, he thinks with some indignation, even if he can still feel the bruises on his ribs. He wouldn’t have taken the job if it could have killed him — though, he reflects, that isn’t something he should mention. Some exorcists take pride in their redundancy, the ease with which they can be replaced in case of a noble death.

(Not Matoba, Shuuichi thinks, not Matoba Seiji, whose family tree is overcrowded with cousins, but seems reluctant to take a bride. Shuuichi doesn’t only eavesdrop on gossip about himself. Matoba may have replacements, but it is difficult to picture him taking satisfaction in an heir who was not at the very least hand-picked.)

It is Matoba who adds, in a lighter voice than Shuuichi is used to hearing, “I wouldn’t count him out so easily.”

If someone else left the villa now and came across Shuuichi, still on the pathway out, it would be obvious that he was listening in to the conversation above, but he can’t bring himself to move on. Nor can he stop himself from nearly smiling, a ridiculous impulse. It’s a nice night, he tells himself, crisp for so early in autumn. If he looks away from the window, he will just be enjoying the air.

“Tell me, Matoba-sama,” someone says, “You knew him rather well when he was first starting out, didn’t you? Did you think he showed much promise then?”

Shuuichi could laugh, and he could also provide an answer without needing a moment to think. Of course not, as if every half-hearted collaboration from those days hadn’t blurred together into a stream of criticism and mean-spirited teasing.

“He had no idea what he was doing,” Matoba says, true to form, but his voice hits an odd tone. “He’s remarkably clever, though, and he had the resources he needed. A shame about his house, or he might actually be a threat.”

It’s a shame I’m  _not?_  Shuuichi thinks, and the same exorcist who had asked the question before remarks lightly, “I would think you would be happy about that.”

The airy conversation reminds Shuuichi almost unbearably of wrap parties and premiere celebrations, the imitation warmth that really ought to be easier for people in his profession, but something in the way Matoba responds cuts through it. “Well, there are many ways things could have been different.”

How dramatic. It isn’t the first time Shuuichi thinks Matoba should have been the one to go into acting. He’s heard enough, though, and takes his leave without looking back. The conversation unsettles him in a way he’d prefer to ignore, settling somewhere in his chest amongst the bruises.

Even on such a clear night, sound doesn’t travel so well from so far, and it is easy for Shuuichi to believe he has misread what sounded at first to be a wistful tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Original post.](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/162716267231/always-greedy-for-meme-fic-so-this-was-not-an)

**Author's Note:**

> [Original post,](http://akitania.tumblr.com/post/156382564691/horrible-exorcists-with-3-or-if-youre-not-up) feat. explanation for the chapter title.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: 'til the needing had ceased](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12260274) by [lady_peony](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony)




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